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“While her friends have celebrated their 21st birthdays, graduated from university and had babies, she has been confined to her cell.

“She regrets the predicament she finds herself in, is apologetic for her actions and wants to show that she can be a credit to her family and to make things right.

Melissa's parents Billy and Debbie Reid

“She wants to prevent anyone else from being sucked into her situation and show that one wrong decision can have massive consequences.”

Reid and Michaela McCollum, then 19 and 20, were jailed for six years and eight months after they were caught at Lima airport in August 2013 as they tried to board a flight to Spain with £1.5million of cocaine.

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Reid applied for early release under a 2014 law designed to reduce Peru’s prison polulation.

A court agreed after hearing she had served a third of her sentenence and shown “repentence”.

McCollum, from County Tyrone, was freed in March. But because she agreed to parole rather than applying for expulsion like Reid, she could have to stay in Peru for several years before being allowed home.